The next time you're ready to plunge your fork into a hot, creamy bowl of macaroni and cheese, you might want to thank Thomas Jefferson.

Or, more precisely, his slave, James Hemings.

No, that is not to say that mac 'n' cheese is the original soul food, one of the yummy delicacies American slaves cooked up on the plantation. In fact, says Thomas J. Craughwell, James Hemings learned to cook the comfort food in France.

"It makes perfect sense because it's cream, it's butter, it's cheese," says Bethel's Craughwell. "It's the Holy Trinity of French cuisine. We think of it as this humble, crappy food that we give to fussy children when they won't eat anything else. But to the French, this would have been a wonderful, rich, creamy side dish."

So much so that Jefferson served it in the White House.

These and other tasty tidbits are revealed in Craughwell's recently released "Thomas Jefferson's Crème Brûlée: How a Founding Father and his Slave James Hemings Introduced French Cuisine to America" (Quirk Books, $19.95). Craughwell will discuss how Jefferson and Hemings (the older brother of Sally Hemings) changed the way we cook at the Litchfield History Museum on Sunday.

Not only did Jefferson and Hemings bring the childhood staple home, but the pair is also responsible for the introduction of french fries, champagne, fine French wine and the titular crème brûlée, Craughwell writes.

That was no easy trick in 18th century America, when French cuisine was derided as (in the words of one chef) "an odd jumble of trash." In her 1784 cookbook, British author Hannah Glasse denounced "the blind folly of this age that would be rather imposed on by a French booby, than give encouragement to a good English cook."

"To the Americans," Craughwell explains, "simple food is not only economical, but it's in some way virtuous. It shows that they're not pretentious. The French are putting in all these things — olive oil, truffles, garlic — that look pretentious, foppish, fancified. So the Americans are looking down their nose at French cooking."

None of this explains one of the great mysteries of this book. In 1784, as he prepared to sail for France as commerce commissioner, Jefferson made a deal with his house slave, James Hemings, then 19. Jefferson stipulated that if Hemings accompanied him, learned the art of French cooking, and taught it to the cooks back home at Monticello when the pair returned, Jefferson would grant him his freedom.

It was an extraordinary — and exceptional — offer. During his lifetime, Jefferson owned nearly 200 slaves, including the entire Hemings family, whom he'd inherited from his father-in-law (and whom his father-in-law was generally believed to have fathered). Jefferson never freed a single slave in his lifetime. It was not until after his death that Jefferson's daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph, freed Sally Hemings, with whom Jefferson is now believed to have fathered six children. Why Jefferson should make such a singular offer to a slave for the express purposes of learning French cooking is one of the many mysteries about Jefferson that continue to perplex Craughwell.

"He wants to have a French chef at Monticello, that's clear," Craughwell says. "We're not really certain how Jefferson found out about French cuisine. It's possible that he learned about it in that Jeffersonian of ways; he read a book."

When Jefferson returned to America, he postponed James Hemings' freedom — for five years.

But there was a risk for Jefferson in taking Hemings to France. Slavery was then illegal in France, though it was permitted in the French colonies in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia. The French Freedom Principle declared an enslaved person became free the moment he or she arrived in France, Craughwell writes.

"The moment James set food in France, he would have been able to claim his freedom, and Jefferson could have done nothing to stop him," he writes. Jefferson knew of the law, while Craughwell says it is unlikely Hemings knew of it before sailing for France. But he surely learned of it while in France, where he mastered not just the cooking but the language.

Craughwell believes it was the deal for manumission, which would allow Hemings to see his family again, that convinced him to stay. Plus, unlike at Monticello, Jefferson paid Hemings while he was in Paris.

"Thomas Jefferson's Crème Brûlée" details much of Jefferson's time in France, a country for which he developed an abiding affection. "Once he arrived in France, he completely fell in love with the place," Craughwell says. "He loved the style. He loved the elegance. He loved the intelligence and the wit he found in the salon. The food and the wine completely seduced him."

Fortunately for Craughwell and other Jefferson historians, Jefferson was a prolific, almost obsessive, chronicler of his own thoughts and experiences, such that Craughwell discovered Jefferson's fondness for the olive (which he called "the richest gift of heaven"), his determination to get a vineyard going at Monticello, his pilfering of Italian rice and his first reaction to champagne: "wine not good."

Like many historians, Craughwell remains bewildered by Jefferson's staggering blindness with regard to slavery. During a trek through Burgundy, Jefferson remarked on the sorry state of the French peasantry, "the people of Burgundy and Beaujolais are well clothed, and have the appearance of being well fed. But they experience all the oppressions which result from the nature of the general government. ... What a cruel reflection that a rich country cannot be a free one."

"Jefferson is a really complicated character," Craughwell says. "All of us have inconsistencies. Jefferson seemed to have more than most."

Jefferson returned home in 1789, just after the storming of the Bastille. Although James Hemings was granted his freedom five years later, his story ends badly. In 1801, at the age of 36, he killed himself.

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If you go

Thomas J. Craughwell, author of "Thomas Jefferson's Crème Brûlée," will discuss how Jefferson and his slave James Hemings changed the way we cook, at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Litchfield History Museum, 7 South St. The event is free and open to the public, though donations are accepted. Registration is required by calling 860-567-4501 or emailing registration@litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org.

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I WONDER WHAT THE KING IS SERVING TONIGHT ...

Just what did a French king eat?

Craughwell cites the reports of one witness who said he saw Louis XVI consume: "an entire chicken, four mutton chops, salad and six eggs; he finished off the dinner with a single slice of ham."

At one dinner served by Madame du Barry (Louis XV's mistress), her chef served: "a pheasant consomme, a ragout of snipe, poached chicken in a cream and butter sauce, roasted chicken with watercress salad, crayfish in Sauternes, and peach ice and strawberries in maraschino washed down by a liqueur made of green walnuts."

At Louis XIV's palace of Versailles, 324 servants were devoted exclusively to preparing the king's meals. "Each course left the kitchen in a grand procession, escorted by 48 gentlemen."

The Palatine Princess described a typical royal meal at Louis XIV's court: "I have very often seen the king eat four plates of different soups, an entire pheasant, a partridge, a large plateful of salad, mutton cut up in its juice with garlic, two good pieces of ham, a plateful of cakes and fruits and jams."

— from "Thomas Jefferson's Crème Brûlée" by Thomas J. Craughwell

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